HAIKU DIALOGUE – Poet’s Choice – pathway

Let’s talk about haiku! You are invited to respond to photographs – I will share a photo each week as a prompt for your writing…

For this series, each poet may send one haiku on the week’s theme, and it will be included in the blog post. There is no selection process. The haiku appear in the order in which we received them.

Submit an original unpublished poem via our Contact Form by Saturday midnight on the theme of the week, including your name as you would like it to appear, and place of residence. (If you send more than one poem, only the first one will be posted.)

Please note that by submitting, you agree that your work may appear in the column – neither acknowledgment nor acceptance emails will be sent. All communication about the poems that are posted in the column will be added as blog comments.

next week’s theme:

The deadline for this theme is midnight Pacific Time, Saturday 14 September 2019.
I look forward to reading your submissions.

Poet’s Choice: pathway

Here are the submissions for this week:

sticks & stones I learn to compartmentalize

Robin Anna Smith

how far
I’ve come
cobbled road

Jean Holland

step by step
stone by stone
autumn light

Maria Concetta Conti

following
mom’s footsteps
pebble road

Jackie Chou
Pico Rivera CA USA

illusory
the cobble stones
triggers her vertigo

Christina Chin

waiting to be
picked up…
footprints

Lakshmi Iyer

burning fields…
puddles of spring water
in the desert

Francesco Palladino

weeds through the cracks
some of my regrets
linger

Stephen A. Peters

the road less traveled
led me to where
I was meant to be

dianne moritz

wearing them quite effortless
filling them…not so much
father’s shoes

Anjali Warhadpande

today’s last stop oh, the texture of this journey

Risë Daniels

step by step
the mosaic
of my life

Aljoša Vuković
Šibenik, Croatia

white matter disease
the neural pathways it takes
to tie shoes

Autumn Noelle Hall

stone garden
each raindrop
another color

Guliz Mutlu

poems in motion
hop skipping corners
of path way

Radhamani sarma

decisions afoot
stone stop signs surrounding squares
urban wilderness

Sherrod Taylor

green shoots
between the stones
a new journey

Xenia Tran

dementia
between the stones
a little green

Marilyn Ashbaugh

thin leather
contained steps
on cobble

nancy liddle

after midnight
weaving down the walk
on spike heels

Barbara Tate

so many gone…
a crooked x
marks the spot

Marietta McGregor

morning light
my mind pause
in the hopscotch

Neni Rusliana
Indonesia

shoe bite…
we don’t know what others
are going through

Vandana Parashar

spring leaf
a sheet memoir
of his life

Eva Su

path of stones –
new shoes
unknown footprints

vincenzo adamo

lollypop
my shoe stuck
to the quay

Pris Campbell

contemplating
the cobblestones –
my thought patterns

Sari Grandstaff

rocky horizon
hanging on the laundry line
everything we own

Babs McGrory

stepping stones across the pond the stars

john hawkhead

stones laid
end to end
my life’s path

Michele L. Harvey

warm hands –
the smell of each stone
becomes home

Carmela Marino

sound of footsteps
cutting through the fog
weathered memories

SD Desai

walking shoes
his geometric path
her quilted quips

Christina Pecoraro

do these shoes
look okay with these pants?
not more weeds!

joel

next step…
pebbles smooth beneath
my feet

Anitha Varma

someone sat on
cobbled path, plants grown between –
shoes on legs

Aju Mukhopadhyay

clip-clop
clip-clop
cobblestones

Olivier Schopfer
Switzerland

that song in her head
she dances carefully
across the lane

Rehn Kovacic

wandering –
the pilgrim wears
the perfumes of the world

girovagando –
il pellegrino indossa
i profumi del mondo

Angela Giordano
Italy

walking alone…
memories of ancient steps
on those pebbles

Rosa Maria Di Salvatore

ah perfect
let’s play
hopscotch

Paul Geiger
Sebastopol CA

the wall of illusion –
my quest of a good haiku
at wit’s end

M.S.Chintak

Soba hotela
Jutarnje Sunce stvara
rasvjetnu scenu

Hotel room
The morning sun creates
the lighting scene

Zrinko Šimunić

Fighting for its life
Amidst stop signs made of stone
The brave grass survives

Margie Gustafson

path of pebbles
leaving behind
silence

Kumarendra Mallick

noon breeze
between cracks in the pavement
a moth carcass

Agus Maulana Sunjaya

dental surgery –
the missed opportunity
to brush

Robert Kingston

burdock hooks
on the moccasins
dandelion rosettes

simonj
UK

sacred spaces
who knows who lies below
no shoes here

Vishnu Kapoor

dandelion sprouts
between the cobblestones
Diagon Alley

Susan Bonk Plumridge

patriarchal shadow overstepping my double helix

Hifsa Ashraf
Pakistan

matching the patterns
cut from different cloths
wedding quilt

Laurie Greer

green weeds
on stone pavement
counted passers

Slobodan Pupovac
Zagreb, Croatia

stone walkway
the softness
of old shoes

Steve Tabb

old sidewalk
fresh twigs lead
me home

Sudebi Singha

narrow territories
how I let the light
in

Neelam Dadhwal

cobblestone pathaway
he did mind about the gap
between my teeth

Sanela Pliško

old town path
flowers grow and survive
between pavers

Tsanka Shishkova

damn weeds!
caused one ugly OCD
episode

Franjo Ordanic

loose stones
three millennia of dust
between my toes

Peggy Hale Bilbro
Alabama, USA

bumpy road
jumping in with both feet
will I ever learn

Karen Harvey

crossing the street
you stand in awe –
some patterns

Adrian Bouter

altair design
the patience required
to fill in the patterns

Ingrid
Macedonia

empty honeycombs
dad always notices
solely my faults

Radostina Dragostinova

those missing pieces in life’s jigsaw puzzle catch-22

Madhuri Pillai

a long pathway –
jacaranda blossoms fall
on mother’s footprints

arvinder kaur
Chandigarh, India

bumpy path
beginning and end
of the life

Ljiljana Dobra
Sibenik Croatia

each word a stone
set to save the world
green grows through

Kath Abela Wilson
Pasadena, CA

sunlight –
a grass without a name
among the pebbles

Maria Teresa Piras

chipped moon
even the cemetery stones
are patchwork

wendy c. bialek

each painstaking pebble
perfectly placed he lives
in fear of a growth spike

Helen Buckingham

symmetries:
another step and our eyes
will meet again

Elisa Allo

Vrbnik wheel
step by step I’m learning
curved Glagolitic

(Note: Vrbnik wheel made of sea pebbles, teaches the old Croatian alphabet called glagolitic script. The rosette is a circle divided into eight identical fields. All glagolitic letters can be derived in them.)

stepping on gray stones
through the labyrinth I walk
practicing patience

Trilla Pando
Houston, USA

another one
for the monument
the god of lilies

Alan Summers
Rockhampton, England

forgotten path…
out of the blue the scent
of childhood

cezar ciobîcă

walking,
the autumn
on tiptoe

camminando,
l’autunno
in punta di piedi

Angiola Inglese

Not in line
nor a perfect oval
just a human

Nadejda Kostadinova

summer job
the weight of
father’s shoes

Roberta Beary
County Mayo Ireland

dappled sunlight
trying to fit together
like and unlike

Claire Vogel Camargo

counting stones
he never makes
eye contact

Nancy Brady

tiny pawprints
between cobblestones…
gibbous moon

Theresa A. Cancro
Wilmington, Delaware, USA

bent shadow –
the slow journey
no crowds

Lemuel Waite

just before
he advances
the bishop pauses

Susan Rogers
Los Angeles, CA USA

through the door
to fairyland
ancient paths
for young feet

Greer Woodward
Kamuela, HI

Katherine Munro lives in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and publishes under the name kjmunro. She is Membership Secretary for Haiku Canada, and her debut poetry collection is contractions (Red Moon Press, 2019).

Comments

I enjoyed all of the haiku this week very much.
I was drawn to how the diamond shaped stone patterns looked like the markings on a chessboard and the feet looked like they were about to move diagonally, like a bishop on a chessboard. Then the more I thought about the bishop moving forward, I felt another layer of ambiguity under the idea of “advance” and how advances can be unwarranted. It was interesting how there were so many different interpretations of the patterned stones in this image.

I liked the simplicity of

sticks & stones I learn to compartmentalize
Robin Anna Smith

I like how the light filters into the frame for this haiku

step by step
stone by stone
autumn light
Maria Concetta Conti

This haiku evoked an image I thought of too, the weeds coming up through the cracks. Nice how the persistent weeds evoke regrets.

weeds through the cracks
some of my regrets
linger
Stephen A. Peters

Cool use of the term mosaic here and I like how the design represents a life.

step by step
the mosaic
of my life
Aljoša Vuković
Šibenik, Croatia

I really like how this haiku connects the stones and the green to a mind…the stones being the opaque, hard to remember places in our memory and the green being the living remembrance. Nicely done.

dementia
between the stones
a little green
Marilyn Ashbaugh

The complexity and intricacy of our thoughts…beautifully evoked here.

contemplating
the cobblestones –
my thought patterns
Sari Grandstaff

This one catches me. The stars are beyond the frame in this image, but then they are indeed beyond the frame of our earthbound pathways. I also like how the haiku leaps from stone to stars in one line.

Thanks for including miné, Susan, and so happy you saw the open door. Alice had the coolest way of getting Somewhere Else with the rabbit hole. To my way of thinking, another dimension is always right next to you: all you have to do is put your arm around its shoulder.

Thanks, Susan. Comments are always highly appreciated. Did you notice my intention to make it look like a weed bursting through the rocky terrain and the paved surface?! Your comments were a surprise but I agree with the mantra feel…

I didn’t contribute this week as I struggled to get what I was trying to create on paper, but enjoyed the reading as always.
*
seeds of protest
finding the cracks
in the system
*
Margaret Walker
*
Needs no commentary as it says it all.
*
chipped moon
even the cemetery stones
are patchwork
*
wendy c. bialek
*
A lovely poetic image.
*
cobblestone pathaway
he did mind about the gap
between my teeth
*
Sanela Plisko
*
Intriguing story here.
*
stone garden
each raindrop
another color
*
Guliz Mutlu
*
Loved the garden reference and color.
*
white matter disease
the neural pathways it takes
to tie shoes
*
Autumn Noelle Hall
*
So true and clever use of the prompt.
*
sticks and stones I learn to compartmentalize
*
Robin Anna Smith
*
Double meaning when I remember the old childhood saying.

Wow! Each week the time to read gets longer.
Thank you everyone for the journeys.
I picked these solely based on connection.
.
Thank you for the KJ for the photo.
.
.
sticks & stones I learn to compartmentalize

Even more good ku than ever this week, to my mind – well done everyone. The two that really stand out for me though are – Robin Anna Smith’s:
.
sticks and stones I learn to compartmentalize
.
what a great opening to the set!
.
and, yet again, Roberta Beary managed to touch a deeply embedded nerve with:
.
summer job
the weight of
father’s shoes

There’s something wonderfully warm and cozy about a wedding (or any other) hand-sewn quilt. The love, thought and effort put into a patchwork quilt, either a project on your own, or as a group endeavour, brings back for me some lovely, convivial memories:
.
matching the patterns
cut from different cloths
wedding quilt

this one really stands out: such a brilliant use of the different elements of the picture!
*
altair design
the patience required
to fill in the patterns

Ingrid
Macedonia

I love this one too–thank you for introducing me to Altair!
*
Vrbnik wheel
step by step I’m learning
curved Glagolitic

(Note: Vrbnik wheel made of sea pebbles, teaches the old Croatian alphabet called glagolitic script. The rosette is a circle divided into eight identical fields. All glagolitic letters can be derived in them.)

Dubravka Šćukanec
Zagreb, Croatia

Wow–didn’t know this either. Beautiful how you have put it together.
*
seeds of protest
finding the cracks
in the system

Hello, Laurie
Thanks for your kind comment. Have fun if these books are still around!
Roger Burrows, English, used the tessellated patterns in Islamic art to produce a stunning range of outlines for children to enjoy colouring in. Laborious work, but the finished pages were well worth the effort. Not sure it was so great on the eyes, but a lot better than kids being glued to their gaming devices these days.
Ingrid 🙂

sorry, Rich – your poem was not received – thanks for adding it here, & I can only suggest Craig’s instructions:
please make sure you see the following message: “Thanks for contacting us! We will get in touch with you shortly.” before you close your browser window or move on to another website. This ensures that your message went through.
thanks for your understanding! kj

No problem kj. I tried to use a bunch of spaces before words for a different kind of look and it just ended up a mess of words so I won’t try that again. I’ll always wait for the “contacting us” message in the future.